August 9, 2010

Thank you to Illinois Review for the following article which includes a succinct definition of the people who are becoming "The Tea Party."

The vast majority of Tea Partiers and conservatives never intended to be political activists. Our focus was solely on making a living, raising a family, taking care of our own business and being good neighbors. It was when lawmakers and social extremists began thrusting their agenda on us, taking away our freedoms, making us pay for their radical ideas and filling our kids' heads full of liberal extremism that we were forced to the streets with protest signs in hand.

Forced into Tea Party activism

The Southtown Star's Kristen McQueary rode on the bus with Tea Partiers on their way from Oak Lawn and Evergreen Park to Chicago's Palmer House to protest Barack Obama's fundraiser for Alexi Giannoulias. In her column "On the Bus with the Tea Party," McQueary expresses a mild surprise at the stellar quality of the protestors -- educated, informed -- although in her mind powerless and extreme.

Kudos to Ms. McQueary for investing a few hours to get to know Tea Partiers rather than ridiculing and criticizing from afar, as the rest of the mainstream media does. And while she carefully points out that she's more of a socially acceptable political moderate -- not like the Democrat or Republican extremists -- she misses a crucial point to the Tea Party movement.

The vast majority of Tea Partiers and conservatives never intended to be political activists. Our focus was solely on making a living, raising a family, taking care of our own business and being good neighbors. It was when lawmakers and social extremists began thrusting their agenda on us, taking away our freedoms, making us pay for their radical ideas and filling our kids' heads full of liberal extremism that we were forced to the streets with protest signs in hand.

Few of us have the outlet of an influential local newspaper at our disposal to express our frustrations as Ms. McQueary does. We hoist handmade signs, pile the kids in the car and take off work or lose sleep just to let our voices be heard. Perhaps she, as a journalist, takes for granted her influential bully pulpit.

Indeed, we average taxpayers are frustrated and use tools available to accept the responsibility of standing up for our country. Forced into activism, we are gathering in a chorus growing by the tens, hundreds and thousands.

And with that, we have to disagree with Ms. McQueary on another of her points: we're no longer powerless, we're on our way to becoming very powerful.

July 29, 2010

Media types have been trying to define the tea party movement and identify its "leaders" since it began. Is it just about fiscal conservatism or does it include social conservatism too? This group (Kane County Taxpayer Tea Party) was started by a group of Catholic women but the 2010 event was planned by everyone who wanted to help.

Must social issues be defined as religious issues? I am pro-life not because I am Catholic but because I am HUMAN. The right to life is Constitutional..."life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

July 23, 2010

By Mark Meckler and Jenny Beth Martin, co-founders of Tea Party Patriots.
A clear pattern of behavior has emerged over the last sixteen months. According to liberals, if you disagree with the their thinking, and if you disagree with the current administration, you are not only wrong, you are a "racist." The latest strike by the left comes from the NAACP, who has resolved that the tea party movement is inherently "racist." At its most simple, this is a direct attack on the First Amendment rights of millions of Americans.

The NAACP has long history of liberalism and racism. If you are a conservative, including a conservative African American, there is no room for you at the NAACP. If you have opinions that differ from the NAACP and the liberal establishment, and if you are African American, you are an "Uncle Tom," a "negro," "not black enough," and "against our people." In other words, the NAACP fancies itself the thought police for millions of black Americans. Disagree with them and you will be ostracized and attacked. You will be subjected to public humiliation and racist commentary from NAACP leadership. The message is clear; tow the line or pay the price.

But the NAACP does not stand alone in this regard. There is a long history of the use of the race card on the left, and it has been pulled on people all across the political spectrum. In recent memory, President Clinton was smeared as a racist by the Obama campaign when Hillary Clinton was running for President. It seems that anyone who disagrees with the far left, socialist policies of Barack Obama and the current administration is subject to the heavy hand of the race card.

The race card is generally played when all else has failed. It was inevitable that it would eventually be used aggressively against the tea party movement. First, members of the tea party movement were called disgruntled voters, then Speaker Pelosi said our movement was nothing more than "AstroTurf" and laughed off as a flash in the pan that would disappear overnight. Next the DNC relased an ad calling us an "angry mob." Most recently, we're being called racist.

All of these attacks have failed because they are untrue and the American people know it. According to recent polling, over 49 million people are active members of the tea party movement (Winston Group, April 1, 2010). Over 145 million people say that the tea party movement is a good thing for America (Rasmussen, June, 2, 2010). The Obama White House and liberal interest groups are hitting the panic button as they read the weekly polls showing diminishing support for their radical big government issue agenda, and a weariness for the politics of division.

Like all movements, the tea party has its fringe. President Obama's domestic terrorist friends from the 60's antiwar past never represented the Americans of good conscience who opposed the Vietnam war. In a similar vein, the racist posters of a few at a Tea Party rally do not represent the feelings or behavior of Americans who believe in this movement.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would be proud of this movement. He dreamed of a colorblind society. The tea party is a truly post-racial movement. Based strictly around the three simple principles of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, and free market capitalism, the movement is uninterested and uninvolved in the politics of race. We are freedom loving Americans numbering in the millions who have come together to express their outrage against a government no longer of, for and by the people. Standing together as brothers and sisters in the fight to return America to its founding principles, skin color, religion, social status, and even political party affiliation are irrelevant to the people involved in this movement. These are the facts. And these facts have already withstood sixteen months of liberal media scrutiny and bombardment.

Today, the NAACP again brings up the completely falsified charges of racial epithets hurled at members of Congress during the debate leading up to the passage of Obamacare. Widely reported as fact by the liberal media, even an offered reward of $100,000 to anyone who could provide documentary evidence proving the charges could not coax videotape, audiotape or a single witness out of a crowd of thousands present on Capitol Hill that day. The race card; played again, and once again discarded by the American people.

When Kenneth Gladney, a black conservative activist was brutally beaten by SEIU thugs at a protest outside of Rep. Russ Carnahan's office, the NAACP and the liberal left refused to intervene. To the contrary, at an NAACP press conference in St. Louis in May, Gladney was referred to as a "negro," an "Uncle Tom," and someone not worthy of the protection of the NAACP, because he's working for the "other side." The NAACP has defended the thugs who beat Gladney, and at the press conference, money was raised for the defense of the "brothers." The race card played once again, this time in confusing fashion, against an African American who was deemed "not black enough," and found himself on the wrong side of the NAACP thought police.

At Tea Party Patriots we will continue to condemn the fringe elements of the movement and any expression of racism or bigotry. We sincerely hope that the Obama While House, the NAACP, and the liberal left will follow our lead and do the same in their own ranks.

by Michael ZakRep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) has falsely accused the Tea Party of having ties to the Ku Klux Klan. Speaking at the NAACP convention, she said: “All those who wore sheets a long time ago lifted them off to wear Tea Party clothing.”

Now is the time to speak some Truth to Power.

It would have been far more truthful for the congresswoman to have admitted the fact that all those who wore sheets a long time ago lifted them to wear Democratic Party clothing. Yes, the Ku Klux Klan was established by the Democratic Party. Yes, the Ku Klux Klan murdered thousands of Republicans — African-American and white – in the years following the Civil War. Yes, the Republican Party and a Republican President, Ulysses Grant, destroyed the KKK with their Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871.

How did the Ku Klux Klan re-emerge in the 20th century? For that, the Democratic Party is to blame.

It was a racist Democrat President, Woodrow Wilson, who premiered Birth of a Nation in the White House. That racist movie was based on a racist book written by one of Wilson’s racist friends from college. In 1915, the movie spawned the modern-day Klan, with its burning crosses and white sheets.

Inspired by the movie, some Georgia Democrats revived the Klan. Soon, the Ku Klux Klan again became a powerful force within the Democratic Party. The KKK so dominated the 1924 Democratic Convention that Republicans, speaking truth to power, called it the Klanbake. In the 1930s, a Democrat President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, appointed a Klansman, Senator Hugo Black (D-AL), to the U.S. Supreme Court. In the 1950s, the Klansmen against whom the civil rights movement struggled were Democrats. The notorious police commissioner Bull Connor, who attacked African-Americans with dogs and clubs and fire hoses, was both a Klansman and the Democratic Party’s National Committeeman for Alabama. Starting in the 1980s, the Democratic Party elevated a recruiter for the Ku Klux Klan, Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), to third-in-line for the presidency.

Speaking more Truth to Power, the Republican Party has been a resolute enemy of the Ku Klux Klan, terrorist wing of the Democratic Party.